A photo showing a man with a cane sitting on the ground at a bus stop led to a groundswell of compassion and a determination to make things right.

This is my area neighbor who suffers from chronic pain prohibiting him from bending his legs and he just got surgery. Now hes sitting on the ground in downtown berkeley because @CityofBerkeley and @rideact dont have benches at their bus stops. pic.twitter.com/vltTqqws5g

— Darrell Owens (idothethinking on bluesky) (@IDoTheThinking) November 1, 2023

From that uncomfortable predicament, a local movement in Berkeley, California, was born.

It started when Darrell Owens noticed his neighbor, who had just undergone surgery for chronic leg pain, sitting down on the sidewalk while waiting for a bus.

“For many years, I had complained about the lack of seating for bus benches in Berkeley and got no response from either the city of Berkeley or AC Transit,” Owens said in a recent article on SFGate.

Owens snapped a photo of his neighbor awkwardly sitting on the curb and posted it on social media, which gained the attention of Mingwei Samuel, a local software engineer who offered to move his own bench to the location.

Samuel had been building benches after learning about the Public Bench Project, which installs them—and donates them to local businesses and organizations—to “promote community-oriented public spaces”.

Before long, Samuel’s bench was placed at the infamous bus stop—and he tweeted a picture of the problem solved.

Samuel’s social media post soon earned more than 100,000 Likes and created a whole bunch of positive vibes and goodwill in the community. An idea and a movement began.

Dozens of benches were soon on the way

Samuel and Owens, strangers just a few weeks prior, started collaborating on their own bench building project called the SFBA Bench Collective, launching a simple website that allows visitors to join the movement, report a problem, or request a bench.

To date, their organization has installed approximately 77 benches at local bus stops. Each bench complies with AC Transit guidelines and the regulations required for the Americans with Disabilities Act.

The estimated cost for each bench is just $70—and the group prioritizes placing benches at the highest-ridership stops.

The effort has created a little bit of a cat-and-mouse game in the transit community. The bench collective will sometimes install their own benches, only to see them replaced by official ones from the city.

Owens finds it satisfying, saying, “That means the collective’s work is complete: We got the cities to build benches for its citizens.”

MEANWHILE, IN THE UK: The UK’s Cutest Bus Stop Has Been Decorated By Locals With Quirky Themes For 20 Years

Elsewhere the movement keeps growing. A climate activist who volunteered for the bench collective posted a video of a bench build that tallied 3.2 million views—and the cause continues to gain traffic across social media with numerous groups across the country pushing for comfortable amenities to support public transit.

“After the election, I think there’s been more energy to do something good in the world, for once, so other people have helped step up to organize bench-build weekends,” Samuel said.

KINDNESS AT THE BUS STOP:
• When Driver Sees Students Waiting in Weeds, He Returned to Mow the Entire Bus Stop
• Cheeky Teen Welcomes Little Brother at His Bus Stop Every Day Wearing a Different Embarrassing Costume–LOOK
• Teens Build Bus Stop Shelter for 5-Year-old Wheelchair User, Protecting Him From Harsh Weather
• Bus Stops in Scotland Go Green – With Roofs Covered in Plants as a Gift For Honeybees

After a single bench sparked the movement in Berkeley—the good Samaritans are keeping it going nationwide.

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